forfeiting all right to the protection of the federal government under any circumstances." The courts have repeatedly pointed out that the owners of property devoted to a public use are entitled to a fair and adequate judicial investigation if they contend that the rates or charges prescribed by a legislature are unreasonable and confiscatory. This is but recognizing that the owners of railroads and other property are entitled to a day in court, just as the humblest person is entitled to his day in court when his constitutional and vested property rights are invaded by the government. If the private property of the individual is to be taken for a public use, it would, of course, be obviously unfair and unjust to permit the legislature to say conclusively what should be paid to him, and deny him any adequate opportunity in the courts to review the legislative fiat. The same principle applies to public service corporations. They are entitled to appeal to the courts to pass upon the validity of any legislation which attempts to compel them to render services at a rate fixed by the legislature if they contend that such rate is unreasonably low and confiscatory; and, pending the judicial investigation, they ought not to incur the risk of accumulating and ruinous penalties. The New York Public Service Commissions Act of last year recognizes this in principle. But, instead of granting a fair hearing or providing for any judicial proceeding in which the reasonableness of the statutory rates may be promptly investigated, the constant effort seems to be to render resort to the courts so dangerous that property owners will abandon their right to a day in court rather than take the risks involved in allowing penalties to accrue and accumulate, which might subject their property to confiscation. Thus, in the recent New York gas statute, declared unconstitutional by the United States circuit court, no judicial investigation was afforded and the penalties imposed were at the rate of $1,000 for each overcharge or violation of the law. As the Consolidated Gas Company alone had upwards of 390,000 customers, an overcharge on only one month's bills, pending an attempt to test the law in good faith, would involve the fabulous total of $390,000,000 in penalties, or nearly five times the value of the whole property of the company. In fact, if the New York statute, at least in this respect, is not nullified by the Supreme Court on the pending appeal,[46] the Consolidated Gas Company may be absolutely ruined for having asserted its legal right to a fair judicial investigation before being compelled to accept what it insisted and what the court has so far held was a confiscatory and unreasonable rate; that is to say, for daring to insist upon a fair judicial hearing before being condemned. The Kansas statute regulating stockyards, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court,[47] imposed penalties which might have aggregated